Imitation of Life
by ThebigW
Summary: The youngest diclonius is also the most terrifying, hidden away from almost everyone, a weapon of great destructive force. But she is also human, and within her beats a heart, the heart of a little girl lost. It searches for someone it once knew.


Elfen Lied is owned by Genco, VAP, ADV, and, of course, Lynn Okamoto. I make no profit from this fan-fiction.

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"_My baby, my baby, my darling little girl. Your mama so loves you; your papa so loves you; you're the most wonderful thing in our world..."_

The vibrations from her mother's voice as she sang, as well as the waves of unadulterated love felt coming from that one, wafted over, about, and through her. It took her to the heights of bliss, very, very close to that world she had most recently departed in order to be here and now. The excruciatingly intense, yet simultaneously evanescent, ephemeral feeling was so exquisite, heavenly, that she wanted, needed ever more, and she consumed it with as much hunger as she did the other nutrients her mother provided.

Her mother paused briefly as she massaged her distended belly, sending soft kisses to her unborn daughter. Then her mother began to sing once more, her sweet, mellifluous voice again permeating the amniotic fluid, until the baby clasped and unclasped her little fists in the bliss that was her existence.

Coming from that now-unknowable place/time to take residence in this small physical body, she reveled in the sheer purity of that existence as she had only to accept being bathed in maternal love. Continuous, unwavering love. Her pure, untainted heart eagerly accepted, then returned that emotion back to its source.

_**Living on waves of love.**_

She was soon to make her entrance into the physical world, and, she knew intuitively that in doing so, she would become separate from that other, from the one who gave and gave and gave so much to her, but they had built a bond now, and no matter what, she would exert whatever control over the world she was to enter in order that this one, who bathed her in rays of light and warmth, with whom she was bound at the heart, would receive in return what she had given. They would be together always, living in the state of love they had created for each other. They would...

_**Dark.**_

_**Wet.**_

_**Cold. So very cold.**_

She gasped.

A sharp intake of air infused her lungs as the harshness of her waking reality at first faintly kissed, then chewed upon the edges of her dream, then devoured it in larger and larger chunks until it was no more. Her consciousness slowly, haltingly, fearfully crept back into her body as her sleep cycle ended.

She exhaled, the mist of her breath rising unseen within the small pocket of air inside the chamber. She moved her limbs then, stirring the viscous, icy fluid they kept her in up to her neck, testing tentatively her reckoning that she was indeed awake, and her dream, her wonderful dream, where she was warm and dry and where light and love reflected off all things around her, had fled this wretched reality, leaving her behind once again. She gave out a sob as her young mind reacted to the natural fear of being trapped in this confined space. The helplessness of her current state hit her hard, the full effect of the sensory deprivation clawing at her once again, and she started to hyperventilate in the cold darkness.

_**Alone.**_

Her heart beat faster as her young mind tried to grasp the remnants of the memory of her fading dream, now ephemeral, now infinitesimal, now nonexistent. Her heart then sank into despair at being here, which was effectively nowhere, once again.

'_Not this. Not again. Anything but this...'_

She wasted no time as she activated her vectors, first pulling the IV line from her arm, wincing at the sting when the needle was removed. They would come to replace it, giving her a brief respite from the isolation when they did, allowing her to use her physical senses for that short duration until they once again took her consciousness from her. Now, pressing with her super-human hands against the walls of her containment unit, she concentrated with as much energy as she could generate, until she felt her vectors pass through those walls.

She had discovered recently that she could, if she tried with every ounce of her being, move her vectors through the vast space that existed between the molecules of even solid matter. When her hands finally breached the containment unit, she extended her senses through her vectors until she could "feel" the outside world through them, gaining perception, albeit minute, through even the second set of massive outer walls. The sweat from her effort formed beads that ran down her face, the salt stinging her eyes, but the humanity within her that wanted to be free would not relent. **_They_** had tried everything in their power to keep her locked away from the outside world, under their complete control.

But they couldn't keep her spirit sealed away; she was alive. Her heart had known for some time that the world did not end at the walls of her tank, and she had explored and then compared and contrasted her desolate existence with what little feedback returned to her through her explorations. Her keen mind, in particular her ego, had developed itself mostly through self-talk. Talking to and answering herself in complete isolation was fertile ground for the development of an alternate personality. That other personality, in an effort to protect her purest, truest, child-like self, fed off the darkness, cold and fear, and grew into another entity completely, one that had learned from the "outsiders" the meaning of power, lies, and deception.

And cruelty.

That particular "outsider", the one whose voice broke through the mind-numbing silence, often startling her out of her reverie of self-identification, the one who responded when called "okaa-san", unwittingly gave her more and more to review and reflect upon with each interaction. She would continue to learn, to seek out, to feel for whatever it was that they were trying to deny her, along with her freedom.

The first pair of vectors made it through, and with just a bit more effort on her part, the sensations of light, sound, and heat were drawn back to her physical body. These sensations, distinctly and directly opposite the reality that her actual body existed within, exploded in her mind and caused her to blink in disorientation for just a moment. Then, in the pitch black of her surroundings, she concentrated once more and pushed through another set of vectors, then another set, and yet another, each set of vectors flailing about, as she "fed" off the impressions of the world outside her prison, until she exhausted herself. Gasping for breath, and kicking about with what strength she could get out of her atrophied legs, she tipped her head back as she fought to remain afloat. If she wasn't careful, she could easily slip below the oily substance and drown. Weakly, gingerly, she recalled one set of vectors back inside and, unsteadily, pushed up with those hands from the bottom of the tank to support her body. As she slowly recovered, and retrieved all of her other vectors, she examined the outcome of this, her latest exploration, and the realization dawned on her that she had experienced something new and different today; it had emphatically registered its uniqueness against everything else she had experienced in her short life. A large amount of emotional energy reached her that day, energy expended during life and death battle. Many of the "outsiders" moved no more. They had lost their life force; she had felt it. But she had felt something else, as well.

_'There is... someone... someone else out there. Someone who is different from the others... someone like me...'_

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A/N: Yeah, Elfen Lied is spectacular, from the very first episode, where they set up and destroyed an anime cliché right before our eyes (which I never saw coming!), so I had to throw my hat into the ring, given some of the marvelous fiction that exists on this site.

W.


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